Illustrative image: The Cradock Four: Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli were murdered in 1985 by the apartheid police. (Photo: Karin Brulliard / The Washington Post via Getty Images) | The sons of the Cradock Four, from left: Ntsika Mhlauli, Nyaniso Goniwe, Lukhanyo Calata and Lonwabo Mkonto. (Photo: Supplied) 
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said it had already provided reasons why it would not fund legal representation for retired Lieutenant General Christoffel Pierre “Joffel” van der Westhuizen at an inquest into the deaths of the Cradock Four.
And while the legal team attending court proceedings with Masilo Brian Lekoloana, the deputy director of litigation of the SANDF, furnished the judge presiding over the inquest with a copy of the reasons, they were not shared with the court on Tuesday.
Lekoloana was subpoenaed to appear before Judge Thami Beshe at the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court in Gqeberha on Tuesday to provide the court with a reason for legal representation being refused to a crucial witness in the reopened inquest.
Questioned by State advocate Jannie Coltman, Lekoloana confirmed that his office had received the application to assist Van der Westhuizen with funding for legal counsel as a retired member of the SANDF.
That application was, however, declined. Subsequently, Van der Westhuizen submitted another application to the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria in April, challenging the refusal on an urgent basis.
Lekoloana said the court in Pretoria had not considered the new application to be urgent. Therefore, the application to have the SANDF's refusal of funding reviewed was still pending, and a date for it to be heard before the Pretoria court was yet to be determined.
He said he appreciated that the inquest was a matter of urgency, but that he was in no position to either delay or expedite the matter.
Lekoloana’s legal team, headed by advocate George Avvakoumides SC, furnished Judge Beshe with a copy of the document listing the reasons for the SANDF’s refusal of Van der Westhuizen’s request for funding. However, the document was not read into the record on Tuesday, and the reasons for this are unclear.
The inquest will return to the high court in Gqeberha on 13 October.
Van der Westhuizen, now 83, was the commanding officer of the Eastern Province Command and a member of the Joint Management Committee, a structure of the State Security Council (SSC), when the Cradock Four — Fort Calata, Sicelo Mhlauli, Sparrow Mkonto and Matthew Goniwe — were murdered. He ordered a signal on 7 June 1985, to urgently “permanently remove” the Cradock Four “from society”, to be sent to the head of the secretariat of the SSC.
At a previous inquest, held in 1994 and presided over by Judge Neville Zietsman, it was found that a prima facie case had been made that the Cradock Four were murdered by members of the security forces, and that a “case of suspicion” had been made against certain police and army officers, including Van der Westhuizen.
Van der Westhuizen never applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. At the start of the third inquest, which began on Monday, 2 June 2025, Van der Westhuizen’s counsel, Marius van Zyl, however, said his client would deny “authorising the killing of the Cradock Four”. DM